Free Republic

6 minutes of hilarity, especially when a boyfriend joins in the joke. I can't believe I watched it until the end but, very entertaining. https://youtu.be/oVm7FkQI4BM

Raqqa, Syria Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS, announced today that he would be disbanding all forces and returning all land to Syria and Iraq. The move was prompted by the ongoing Climate Conference in Paris. "This is one thing we could not have anticipated," Mr. al-Baghdadi said in prepared remarks. "When we see the world coming together like this on such a dangerous subject as Global Climate Change, we realize that our Caliphate will never survive. It's only a matter of time before Climate Change is no...

Iran last Friday test fired what it claims is the world's fastest underwater missile - reported to have a top speed of 360km/h (233mph), according to the BBC. Special Republican guard troops fired the weapon - dubbed "Hoot" or Whale - and successfully destroyed a derelict ship in the Gulf as part of Iran's "Holy Prophet" war games. Iranian TV interrupted normal broadcasts to show footage of the test. This latest bit of sabre-rattling, certain to irritate the US whose 5th Fleet operates in the area, comes hot on the heels of a test last week of a multi-warhead conventional...

Nicholas Kristof: I ran into Al Gore at a climate/energy conference this month, and he vibrates with passion about this issue -- recognizing that we should confront mortal threats even when they don't emanate from Al Qaeda. "We are now treating the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer," he said, and (perhaps because my teenage son was beside me) he encouraged young people to engage in peaceful protests to block major new carbon sources. "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers," Mr. Gore said, "and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."

Three middle school children band together, sabotage a construction site, gag a land developer and take him hostage. But their criminal conduct, aimed at saving the habitat of burrowing owls from "greedy land developers" isn't reality-based. It's the subject of a new movie that one entertainment reviewer labels "soft core eco-terrorism" for kids. The movie, "Hoot," opens Friday May 5. It features environmentally conscious teenage characters vandalizing heavy machinery by stealing parts off of them and flattening tires in order to hinder a development project.

<p>What's the difference between a ferruginous pygmy owl living in Arizona and a ferruginous pygmy owl just across the border in Sonora, Mexico? If you answered, "nothing," you've just shown more common sense than either the geniuses in Washington who wrote and passed the Endangered Species Act 30 years ago this month or their successors who enforce the law today.</p>